


Running Red and Green

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Gen, I freaking love pale stuff, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Stargazing, Vampires, even if my writing skills are shot to heck atm, they're like twenty-one, this was fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7041319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Musings of first meetings and blooming friendships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Red and Green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mogseltof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mogseltof/gifts).



> I do not curse as a rule, so please add character appropriate swearing in your head wherever you feel it's necessary.  
> I should really enter exchanges more often, it motivates me to actually write. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

He meets her first on a dusty road, lounging against his car under a scorching sun. On days like this most everyone is inside, unless they have a death wish or are just plain crazy. (He doesn't really know where he fits in on that spectrum. Possibly both.)

She's walking at a clip, head low. Everything about her screams, "Suspicious character! Interrogate me about my crimes!" But Dave isn't really inclined to pry into her business. Last time he tried that, he got a fist to the face and an emptied wallet.

Then he notices her feet.

It's over a hundred degrees, and she's walking barefoot. The ground should be burning, but it doesn't even seem to faze her. His interest is officially piqued.

Also, are her hands… glowing? Must be a trick of the light.

"Hey, lady, lose your shoes somewhere?" An innocent enough inquiry. Hopefully this time, it won't end in needless violence.

(When did his internal monologue start sounding like Rose? If he ends up sounding like a college professor every time he thinks, he's going to perform an acrobatic pirouette off the handle and land face first on the pavement.)

She looks up, startled. Her jade eyes fall on him, and instantly her guard is up. "Oh, I didn't actually notice I lost them. Thank you for pointing it out." She immediately tries to rush off again.

"Wait, hold on." She halts, turns around. "You're telling me that you've been walking on dirt that's a hundred and ten degrees, and you didn't even notice you were barefoot?" No fricking way, Jose. She's raising hella red flags.

She sighs, green scarf fluttering in the light breeze, and rolls her eyes heavenward. "If you hadn't noticed, I’m kind of in a hurry. I don't really have time for an interrogation, well, unless you're secretly Problem Sleuth, in which case go ahead, but I seriously doubt that. So if you don't mind, I'm just going to..."

"Just a sec, lady," he says as he fumbles around in your pocket. It's gotta be here somewhere.... A-ha!

He triumphantly waves his Junior Investigator badge, courtesy of one Chief of Houston Police Terezi Pyrope, in the air. (So maybe a Junior Investigator isn't actually a thing, but hey, she doesn't have to know that.) "Now you have to come with me, ma'am. Detective Dave Strider at your service."

She seems to deflate a little bit. "Oh, that's a pity. They always catch up eventually, I suppose."  
Now this is getting interesting. "Who catches up and why? You don't seem like a drug dealer, but I've been wrong about that before."  
"Well, it's usually the CIA, but local police forces and investigators show up fairly often as well. Can't have a live vampire on the loose, unfortunately, but if you're here, you know that already."

Wait, what?

"Which is why I am so sorry to have to do this," she says, sounding only half sorry. He has barely a split second to process her words before suddenly she swings _a real actual chainsaw right at his freaking face._

Well, there's the needless violence he foresaw.

Instinct takes over, and he jumps out of the way while drawing his sword. "Whoa, hang on!" He parries a swing with his blade; any other sword would probably snap in half, but thankfully he upgraded to Bro's old nigh indestructible sword set.

(Not the anime katana, though. No way he would ever be caught dead with a weeaboo sword, even if the blade itself was awesome.)

Stumbling backwards, he makes a time-out gesture. "What do you mean, 'vampire'?" he demands. "I was kidding about the detective stuff, I have no idea what you're talking about, and the whole movie villain dramatic monologue thing got old really fast."

Her mouth makes a perfect "o" of surprise. "Oh, dear...."

 _"Oh dear?!_ "  
She bites her lip, and he notices the long fangy canines. “You really don't know who I am?”

“Not a clue.”

"Oh my stars above, I usually try to keep bystanders out of the crossfire, but every so often I become just a bit too paranoid. And _I'mreallysorrynowIgottagobyesorryforalmostmurderingyou_!"

She takes off, running way too fast to be normal.

Ooooooohhhhhhkay, then.

(He didn't even get her name.)

\------------

He finds her again, entirely by accident. Well, it's _probably_ an accident

It’s a small '50s style diner in downtown Houston. He grabs a large order of fries and a can of apple juice, and sits down at a table near the window. His archaeology and paleontology classes aren't starting for two weeks, and he's determined to spend as much of these last dregs of summer as he can out of the apartment. Staying indoors all day gets depressing.

She's sitting at a booth an aisle away. The vampire girl, who tried to kill him with a chainsaw a month ago and then disappeared without a trace. Her gaze locks onto his, and her eyes widen. She immediately starts towards the door.

Ohhhhhh no. Not getting away this time. She owes him one whopper of an explanation.

Dave slides in on the other side of the booth. "Sup, Vampirella."

"What are you doing here? Why did you follow me?" she hisses, looking downright murderous. "I have enough on my mind right now without worrying about a strange man in mirror shades stalking me."

He puts his hands up defensively. "Whoa, hey, easy on the slander. I'm a fine, upstanding gentleman, ma'am. I didn't stalk you, I _live_ here."

“You live In the diner?"

"You know what I mean."

She puts her head in her hands. "Are you going to call the Houston officials and lock me up?"

"Now why in the entire world would I want to do that."

"Everyone does. I'm. A. Vampire. Can you not get that through your American head?"

He suddenly registers the fact that her accent is British. Interesting.

"Hey, it's cool. My sister summons eldritch monsters in her spare time and my islander friend has a radioactive dog, I've seen my share of weird stuff. Just wanna know one thing: you for Team Edward or Team Jacob?"

She stares at him blankly.

"...Nevermind."

Other people are staring at them. He realizes belatedly that their conversation was kind of loud.

"Look, just let me walk you to my car, and you can explain everything without people judging you. Because I do want to hear a freakin' explanation as to why you attacked me with a chainsaw. Also, the vampire thing."

She sighs rather dramatically. "Fine. If you insist."  
"You won't... You know. Bite me, right?"

She gives him a small grin with incredibly sharp teeth, and it reminds him of Terezi. "No promises.

He offers his arm (ironic chivalry, aw yeah) and they walk out.

\---------

Kanaya knows she's taking a risk, telling this Dave guy about herself. He could be anyone, a vampire hunter (she's met her fair share), or a government agent. She doesn't trust his words, no matter how ironically sincere he sounds.

He says he didn't follow her here. She isn't sure if she believes him, but she's tired of running. Plus, if he really is who he says, she owes him an apology for the impulsive chainsaw attack.

He's lounging next to his red car, eyeing her apprehensively through dark shades. "'Kay, first question. What's your name?"

It's out of her mouth before she can gauge how much to tell him. "Kanaya Maryam."

She has no choice but to trust him now. He has her name. Oops.

"And I'm Dave, but I told you that the other day. You know, when you tried to _murder_ me in cold blood."

"I'm really sorry about that, you know."

He waves a hand dismissively. "It's all good, Maryam. I've had worse. Second question: how can you walk around in the sun? In all the books and stuff they die when they go in the sun or something. And they go all, y’know, sparkly."

"No, that's just a rather odd urban legend. In fact, I now have increased tolerance to the sun's rays. I rather like it here."

It was the reason she came to sunny Texas in the first place. After her death and renewal as an undead creature, she had craved the sunlight. Dreary London was a nightmare. She hopped on the first plane she could find to run around the world, from beaches in the Caribbean to historic monuments in the Middle East and everything in between. Eventually, all her trip money ran out and she came down here to start a new life. A place that was sunny (and beautiful, at least sometimes) but out of the way of prying eyes.

It was hard work deflecting the suspicions of the locals, but she was managing. She rented an apartment in the suburbs and got a job in a clothing store, all the while terrified that somehow she would lose control of her bioluminescence and then everyone would know....

She glances around to make sure no one is around, then flicks her hand to turn on her glow. Behind his shades, Dave's eyebrows raise. "You weren't kidding, you really are an undead vampire. I'm talking to an actual vampire, holy-"

"Has anyone ever told you that you ramble?" She turns off the light.

“Pretty much everyone, actually.”

She shifts slightly. “If you get to ask me questions, I get to ask you one. Fair’s fair.”

He shrugs. “Don't see what you could want to know about a random normal human, but okay.”

“What color are your eyes?”

He hesitates, and she wonders why.

“Red.”

…She was not expecting that answer. “Oh. Okay.”

She's not going to ask to see them, though. He's obviously uncomfortable talking about it, and she's not inclined to pry.

Dave’s expression turns completely unreadable, and he leans forward. “So, the way things are going right now, either one of two things could happen. One, we leave here and never see each other again. We forget about each other and get on with our lives. Two, the universe (or a seriously overinvested fanfic writer) is going to keep pushing us together till we become friends. Guess which scenario I think is more likely.”

Kanaya raises her eyebrows. “As it might be said on TVTropes, you seem quite genre savvy. If it isn't too incredibly forward of me, might I proposition you with a request for friendship?”

He grins then, the first true smile she's seen on him since they met. “Request accepted.”

\------

She doesn't own a car. She walked all the way here from her suburban home, and Dave wonders why he's even surprised. Naturally, he offers to take her back in his car. She accepts kind of stiffly, but when she thinks he’s not watching, he sees her shoulders relax the tiniest bit. He lets her take the wheel of his car, and though she starts out shaky and nearly backs into a tree, soon she gains both confidence and speed. They cruise down the highway with the windows down and the radio turned up, and Dave thanks whatever higher powers there may be that they're not playing country.

For an undead vampire, Kanaya is surprisingly easy to talk to. She matches his rambling with snarky bravado. Not for the first time, he thinks that she would get along really well with Rose. He should introduce them sometime.

She talks about her life in London, and then moving here to escape the gray nothingness that seemed to hang over it always. Texas has its own kind of nothingness, she adds, but at least it isn't gray. Before coming here, she'd gone on some sort of round the world trip, half to evade the weirdos on her tail, and half to just have fun. What made her settle here, when she could have been living on a beautiful Hawaiian beach? (Hint: it's either destiny or that same overindulgent fanfic writer.)

She doesn't mention exactly how she came to be a glowing vampire, and he doesn't press her. She lives alone in the suburbs, in a town that she apparently forgets the name of all the time.

He tells her about his life with Bro, in a high-rise in the city. When he mentions strifing, she's horrified (“You were fighting with swords at seven years old?”), so he steers the subject away from his childhood, which was basically Child Protective Services’s worst nightmare, and talks about his life now. He moved out at eighteen, and spends his days working a Starbucks counter (though sadly a coffee shop AU has never happened to him personally). He’s looking forward to his fall classes in paleontology, hard-pressed though he would be to admit it.

He tells her all about John and Rose and Jade, John’s latest scheme that nearly managed to bring the police to his dorm room and his many misadventures involving pranking, Jade who’s finished a Ph.D. at twenty and is basically rich, though she never acts like it, and has never set foot off her island, and Rose, his not-sister from New York who summons grimdark monsters in her spare nights and psychoanalyzes his every verbal slip and acts high-class about everything even though she's an absolute dork. Kanaya, apparently, has read some of her published works (oh God, she's a _Complacency_ fan, he'd thought she was too practical to enjoy that glorified wizard slashfic) and is very interested in hearing more about the author. On a whim, he gives her Rose’s chumhandle. They can dissect subtext in popular media late into the night.

They have a mutual friend in Karkat Vantas, who had apparently helped Kanaya out right after she “turned” (she still talks around the subject). He'd been a weird kind of hatefriend to Dave for a while. Then… he still isn't too sure about what they were, exactly. He moved away a year ago, and he and Dave lost touch. Fortunately, Kanaya has his chumhandle in her phone. Dave immediately opens a chat window on his phone to send a chum request.

Right now, they sit in comfortable silence as the dusty Texan landscape rolls by. The only sound is the radio’s hum:

“ _When Rome’s in ruins_  
_We are the lions_  
_Free of the coliseums…”_

Breaking the silence, Kanaya says, “You don't strike me as the type to frequent diners.”

He shrugs. “They have good apple juice. All the clubs I DJ at only sell the alcoholic stuff.”

She looks interested. “Oh, you DJ? Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've dropped many a hot mixtape, you know. I am a man of many talents. And you, what kinds of things do you do in Nowheresville, Texas?”

She turns off the highway and onto a main road. “I'm a seamstress. And frankly, you could use one, Dave dear.”

“Hey, don't diss the T-shirt.”

“I could see you in a suit.”

“With a bow tie. Bow ties are cool. And a giant sword.”

“I don't know about the sword, but I could probably sew you a nice fancy suit in red. It seems to be your color.”

“Throw in a cool record logo and you've got a deal.”

They pull up in front of an apartment block. Dave surveys the area. “So this is Vampire Town.”

“I am actually the only vampire here. Sorry to disappoint.”

(He wants to tell her that there's no way anything with her could be a _disappointment_ , but there are too many way to misconstrue that statement. She'd probably think he's hitting on her, and that is definitely _not_ what's happening here.)

She unlocks her tiny second-floor apartment and ushers him inside. The first thing he notices is the clutter. He’d sort of expected someone like Kanaya to keep things obsessively neat. But every single table is covered in cloth and unfinished projects. In the center of the living room, a sewing machine sits proudly on a desk. Hand-sewn dresses and shirts in every color imaginable hang on racks lining the wall. She must really love her work.

“Dang, Kanaya, it's like you’re Marina Diamandis’s personal stylist. Like. Wow. _Wow_.” He’s at a loss for words- and that doesn't happen often. She brightens, both literally and figuratively. She flits around the apartment like an anxious moth, straightening things and dusting off surfaces and cooking something heavenly in the kitchen.

“David Strider, you are as skinny as a stick and we are going to get some real food into you. Fries and apple juice does not count as a meal.”

“Hey, I ain't complaining. I can't cook to save my life. These days I live off Doritos and ramen. A good home cooked meals sounds awesome.”

After clearing away a mountain of fabric, he sets the table with her direction (even her cutlery is decorated, this is unfairly adorable). She pulls a lasagna dish out of the oven (she’s not wearing oven mitts, he wishes he could be a heat resistant vampire) and sets it in the center. They don't waste a moment in wolfing down the amazing goodness that is Kanaya’s cooking. The lasagna is baked to perfection, with hearty sauce and a dash of some herbs and spices he can't identify. For lack of a better description, it tastes like coming home.

He attempts to make dinner conversation. “Do you ever have to actually drink people’s blood?”

“Oh, sometimes, but I will always ask permission.”

“Wow, what kinds of people offer their necks to literal vampires?”

She smirks. “The same kinds of people who make friends with them.”

“Point taken.”

\--------

Night has fallen outside, and the crickets have struck up their song. Kanaya clears away the plates left on the tables and dumps the lot into the sink- she can worry about dirty dishes later. For now, she is hosting a guest. “Dave, I want to show you something,” she whispers.

He had been lounging (goodness, he does lounge a lot) on the living room couch on his phone, but something in her voice prompts him to sit up. “Whatcha got, Maryam?” he whispers back. The whispering makes it feel like they're sharing a lovely secret, and despite the slow heat that always seems to hang over Texas, a delightful chill runs down her back.

“It's over here.” She leads the way to a back room with a window. A rickety fire escape is attached to the side, and she scrambles upwards. Dave looks on with slight apprehension. “Come on! It’s perfectly safe. I do this all the time.”

“Yeah, but you're, like, a super fast glowing vampire. I'm a normal human. Well, a normal human with weird eyes, but-“

“Come on!” She grabs his hand. He mutters something about always being surrounded by crazy broads, but scrambles up the fire escape next to her. She leads him up three flights of steps to the sloping roof.

From this high up, everything in the small town Kanaya lives in (even she's started thinking of it as Nowheresville, thanks a _lot_ , Dave) is visible. The place is dimly lit by street lights, not nearly as bright as the lights of Dave’s big city. Patches of dry, dark countryside alternate with homely residential areas and 24-hour gas stations. It's not really what Kanaya had envisioned for herself as a place to live, but it's home.

“Dave, look up,” she whispers.

He scans the sky. “I don't see anything. Is there, like a UFO or something? Because I didn't bring my awesome camera, and I really would have liked to get a picture.”

“No, not anything as exciting as that, although I wouldn't be surprised if aliens did show up here. I think you’ll probably be able to see it if you take off your shades.”

He considers, and Kanaya wonders if she's crossed a line- he doesn't ever seem to take them off, anyways. But then, surprising her, he pulls off the glasses in one smooth motion. He looks up, and draws a sharp breath.

Out here, away from bright city lights and choking pollution, the stars shine like swaths of diamonds. The Milky Way is discernible to their left, and Kanaya can pick out individual constellations. She sees the familiar Virgo constellation towards the south, and on this night in particular she can count every star. It’s a sight of wonder every time. She's honestly rather surprised something as beautiful as this could exist in a place like the Texas country.

“I come up here sometimes when I need to not think about things,” she says. “I've always loved space.”

Dave is still staring at the sky in awe. His face is a lot easier to read without the mirror glasses. “This is literally the most aesthetic thing my eyes have ever rested upon, and I may or may not have been behind the origin of the _dat boi_ meme.”

“What is that boy?”

“Oh man, you need a Tumblr. Don't worry, young grasshopper, I’ll be your meme sensei. To make the meme, you must first _be_ the-“

“Dave, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, just shut up and enjoy the moment.” She leans her head on his shoulder, and though the move surprises him, he doesn't pull away. He runs his fingers lightly through her hair. She realizes that this is the most relaxed she's been in a long time. From the beginning, Dave had that effect on her, making her tell him everything about her before her mind could catch up with her mouth. She'd formed a deep friendship with a guy she would have killed two seconds after meeting him.

“You know it goes without saying now that I am definitely not turning you in to the Bureau of Supernatural Stupidity or anything like that, right?” His eyes are really quite lovely.

She smiles, and her glow is just subtly brighter. “I know, Dave. I know.”

(A place and a person called home.)

**Author's Note:**

> Lemme tell ya, before I saw this prompt I had no idea this pairing even existed, but I quickly fell in love and ran with it. There is too little in the pale KanDave tag.  
> I have not written anything since December and I'm actually really mad at myself, but I'll try to get going on the fic writing front soon.  
> Thanks for giving my dumb words a read!
> 
> (Side note: please please tell me if there are typos/ mistakes!)


End file.
